NFL has weak Week 1

Week 1 of the NFL is always a special week. Not only do fans of all teams have hope that something special might happen for them this season, but it is also the time where the negative topics of the off season are wiped clean just like a kindergarten black board and talk of the actually sport replaces it. We can temporarily forget about the on again, off again suspension of Ezekiel Emmitt. We can forget about the Las Vegas police union boss sending a ridiculous email to Roger Goodell regarding Michael Bennett and we can even sweep under the rug the fact that Colin Kaepernick is still an unemployed quarterback.

Well, maybe not so fast on that last one.

After reviewing all the games during this first weekend, one stat seems to stick out. There have been a number of teams that have struggled to score. The Seattle Seahawks and Indianapolis Colts came close to double digits scoring nine points while Houston Texans at least scored a touchdown but couldn’t manage anything else. The San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants fared even worse as their output was a solitary field goal and the poor Cincinatti Bengals, well, they didn’t even make it on the board at all.

The Rams defense scored more points today than the Bengals, Jets, Colts, 49ers, Texans and Seahawks.

Now it is always possible that we could be entering a renaissance defensive era, but I don’t think that is it. It looked more and more that these offences just did not click and that none of the players seemed to be on the same page.

There may have been only six teams this week that did not score in double digits which may not be alarming in itself, but when you add the fact that the New York Jets only managed 12 points and that 2 or 3 other teams only made it into double digits because of a pick-6, you start to worry it this is more of a systemic issue that now represents 30% of the NFL.

Much of that poor offence is being attributed (as stated by Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post) to the poor setup of the preseason. In a physical sport such as football, a fine balance has to be achieved between getting a player ready for the regular season and preventing that player from injuring themselves in games that don’t mean anything. This isn’t just a debate regarding the number of preseason games that should be mandated, but also boils down to how much time players should play during these game and ramping that amount of time progressively as we get closer and closer to the start of Week 1. It sounds really simple to say it that way, but other complications do arise. There may be many players battling for one starting position and therefore not enough reps for the eventual winner to get accustomed to the plays and his teammates causing poor play early on.

Let’s hope that a poor preseason format is not the true problem here because if it is, it may very well be an unfixable one. So instead, let’s take a quick look at another area where these teams can improve like talent, or more specifically, a talented quarterback such as Colin Kaepernick. Now he is not one of the best QB’s in the league, but it can easily be argued that he is better than a number of them.

Which leads us to the same question we have had all offseason. Why hasn’t any team signed him yet? Some say he is a distraction, others say he is a polarizing figure. Some teams (ok, one for sure) even mentioned that they feared President Donald Trump (who said this with pride) might send a nasty tweet to the team that hires Kaepernick. Yes, you read that correctly, a President is proud to be blacklisting an NFL player. At the end of the day it comes down to the almighty dollar and it is the fear from owners not that he is a distraction on the field, but because he may be a distraction to the number of ticket buying fans that are… well, I don’t want to use the “r” word. Let’s just say, they are anti-Kaepernick because they don’t understand what a peaceful protest is all about. They don’t understand that blind faith in leaders and/or symbols is an environment that nurtures the growth of people like Hitler and the swastika. Think I am exaggerating? Charlottesville, Virginia was less than a month ago. THAT was far more of a disgrace to what the American flag and the military stand for and yet they aren’t protesting about that nearly as much? With so many people blinded by their so-called patriotism, it isn’t difficult to understand why Kaepernick is not in the NFL.

So unfortunately, Week 1 in the NFL has not been good enough to wash or dispose of it’s rotten stench and with the Texans looking to start a rookie QB against the Bengals in Week 2… this sad start to the season may very well continue.